Infant Mortality Rate as a Tool to Improve Rural Health

Abstract

Children are considered to be an important asset of a nation; therefore reduction in infant mortality rate is likely to be the most important objective of the millennium development goals. Infant Mortality Rate reflects a country’s level of socio economic development and quality of life and is used for monitoring and evaluating population, health programs and policies. The paper discusses the trends and patterns in infant mortality rate (IMR) over the period 1995 to 2012 across various selected states within India. Simple regression model under Ordinary Least Square method is used to find out the relationship between infant mortality rate and factors influencing IMR. Though the National Population Policy (NPP) 2000, aimed at achieving infant mortality rate of 30 by the year 2010 actual rate achieved during that period was 47. The case is even worse in rural India. There seems to be a little progress made over the years in bridging the gap. But the gap only seems to be widening by the day. This paper also focuses on finding out the gap between rural and urban infant mortality rates in India. This paper argues as to how infant mortality rate can be used as a tool to improve health conditions in India, especially in rural India.